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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27234865">The sea on the cavern’s floor</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/faceofstone/pseuds/faceofstone'>faceofstone</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Myst Series</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Developing Friendships, Diary/Journal, Failboats, Gen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 09:00:34</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>745</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27234865</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/faceofstone/pseuds/faceofstone</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Talks in K’veer like ships in the night, missing the common shore.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Atrus &amp; The Stranger (Myst)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Trick or Treat Exchange 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The sea on the cavern’s floor</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/KrasotaBella/gifts">KrasotaBella</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Some Stranger details! :D The years between 1807 and 1814 were so confusing for her...</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Jan 23<sup>rd</sup>, 1807</p>
<p>A fissure in the desert. A volcano hums above.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I cannot go back.</p>
<p>Not to Albuquerque, not to the expedition, certainly not to a ship back to Europe and to my windy shore. A gust is all that remains where I once stood: I am not there.</p>
<p>The MYST Book remains in my bag, tied shut with strong ropes. That way is precluded as well. Oh, my heart longs for the lapping of the waves against the dock, seagull cries beckoning toward an unknown ocean, a thousand oceans hidden on its shelves. I dream of loosening its bindings. Every night, in my dream, the Book holds a new world that whispers my name. But as I face these desires in broad daylight, I know that I cannot impose on my friend. To any readers of these pages, to my future self and most of all to my mother, who may be left wondering how it came to be that it was not sea fortresses nor rebel hideouts, but rather mere manners that stopped me: the matter is complicated and would require a separate dissertation, one which I have little patience for unravelling.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I remain stuck, then, in this place of wonder, itself stuck between above and below, this world and others. It was here that I found the Book. It is here that…</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I do not understand.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>My dearest memories unfold as such:</p>
<p>It is evening, for me. Atrus, I suspect, has long relinquished all adherence to his fading memories of day and night (I asked him how long he had been imprisoned, once, early on. He made a gesture like a number that means too long, and for good reason). The living quarters under Myst Island are warm and alluring, but I make supper for two and bring the bowls through the binding of worlds to K’veer to dine together, in silence. I sit on the ground, back against his desk. I know he is still writing this thing that is frail and urgent and casts a shadow far beyond this hollowed-out grotto. On a good day he can afford some thoughts for himself and asks me to recount the day’s exploration and so our friendship is woven, from strands of many Ages, fragments of his memories and my discoveries glowing across the darkness. I get the impression that he likes to listen to people at arm’s distance. So do I.</p>
<p>No surprises, then, that a question as simple as <em>where are you from?</em> lingers until the very last day we would spend together. I, of course, did not know that our quiet evenings were to come to an end. He must have. So he asks: where am I from? So I answer: I speak of Trst and of the wind, the freedom in the karst, the wind again, three winds really, but the one that still fills my lungs is the northern bora that descends to sweep the city clean from the mountains to the sea. The sea! I shall never again see the sunset over Veliki trg wide open to the West, but my memories are luminous enough.</p>
<p>He hums in agreement. We speak of deep currents. At last I feel bold enough to jape that the state of his nautical endeavours on Myst and Stoneship both leaves something to be desired; he hums again, amused, almost a restrained laughter. Twenty years on an island did not a sailor make, he explains: he was born far away from Myst, in a desert… his voice falters, struck by tenderness, nostalgia, loss. He tarries on that thought, heavy with whatever secret memories it evokes in him, leaving himself wide open until exhaustion catches up with him and he drifts off to sleep.</p>
<p><em>A desert</em>, I say. <em>Do not laugh, my friend, for I was called to one, by some force in my blood, and it is there, by the most peculiar dwelling, that I found your Book…</em> but it is too late, past his strength, and he hears nothing of this.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>That was the end of our quiet understanding. On the following day, I left for Riven. Eventually, a sea of stars brought me back here, back to the Book where my journey began. My blood still sings of this place. It is so much stronger here, but none the clearer. Now I am finding traces that I believe to be his, and this journey still stretches across my present...</p>
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